A subsidiary of patent licensing firm Cascades Ventures Inc. filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging the constitutionality of the inter partes review provisions of the America Invents Act.
ECharge Licensing LLC, along with Nevada inventor J. Carl Cooper, filed the suit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and deputy director Michele Lee in the Eastern District of Virginia. In their nine-page complaint, eCharge and Cooper claim that inter partes review—the administrative process for challenging patent validity created by the 2011 patent reform bill—violates the Seventh Amendment by taking the question of whether three patents issued to Cooper are valid out of the hands of a jury.
